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news
London to Brighton (CC licensed by youngie:Flickr)One in ten people in UK have forgotten how to ride a bike, survey finds
“It’s just like riding a bike,” goes the saying when describing something that once you master it, you never forget – but a new survey has found that doesn’t hold true for one in ten British people who say they wouldn’t know what to do if they got back in the saddle.
A further one in five of the 2,047 respondents to the survey by Censuswide, commissioned by the British Heart Foundation, said that they have not got on a bike in more than ten years.
The survey was commissioned to tie in with the launch of this year’s London-Brighton bike ride, and Elizabeth Tack from the charity said: “It’s surprising to learn that while there is a clear appetite for cycling in the UK, there is still a vast amount of us who are not getting on our bikes often enough, or even at all.
“Cycling is a fantastic way of keeping your heart healthy, which is why we’re encouraging everyone to dust off their bikes this year and challenge themselves to take on our London to Brighton Bike Ride to help support our vital research into heart disease.
“We can provide all the support you need to get you back in the saddle this year, with free training guides and advice available for all registered cyclists in the run up to the big day.
She added: “It’s a fantastic day out for all the family and every pound you raise will help make a difference to millions.”
Many councils throughout the UK now provide free or subsidised cycle training to first-time adult cyclists or people who are returning to riding a bike after a break of several years.
The charity Cycling UK also encourages lapsed cyclists to get back in the saddle through its ongoing Big Bike Revival initiative.
This year’s London-Brighton Bike Ride takes place on 18 June and you can find more details, including how to sign up, here.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- Hirsute 1 hour 23 min ago
Radar tells me their closing speed, if they are slowing and how far away. Then I decide to say a prayer. The change of light pattern is incidental.
- lonpfrb 1 hour 43 min ago
Quite so, which is why our village 20mph zone covers the whole residential extent. Of course, enforcement is another thing..
- lonpfrb 2 hours 9 min ago
No, that's very doubtful while proper testing would be fully destructive.
- TheBillder 2 hours 55 min ago
In that £1000 exactly scenario, beginners should probably be made aware that pedals will be extra.
- don simon fbpe 3 hours 23 min ago
What's wrong with dropping down on to the Millenium Bridge, or the swing bridge, then the brief, but satisfying climb back up the hill? #training....
- chrisonabike 4 hours 4 min ago
The relatives might of course disagree, but in general I'd countenance a relatively light sentence* if only we could fix it so that those who...
- ktache 4 hours 43 min ago
Id forgotten that I got a second hand set of project two's for my getting to work bike over twenty years back.
- Veganpotter 5 hours 40 min ago
My bet is that all these tires popping off are from people with bad pressure gauges or they're simply just putting too much air in on purpose. ...
- chrisonabike 6 hours 56 min ago
David9694 - you were right! These new autonomous vehicles really are conspiring to run out of control!...
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22 comments
These mass participation cycling events, either on closed roads or marshalled routes, thousands of leisure cyclists riding close together possibly for the first time, possibly over much longer distances than they are used to, maybe even unfamiliar with skills that a lot of us just take for granted such as using a water bottle. Theres always someone who thinks it is a race, always someone who makes a mistake, pushes their luck or isn't quite as skillful as they think they are. In short anyone who has ridden one of these events will have passed an incident involving a fallen rider.
These relatively low energy spills are exactly the sort of scenario where a helmet can meet its design brief and provide meaningful protection.
"Meaningful protection" Could you define that please? If you mean that helmets prevent bumps and scratches, I can only agree, but I can't help feeling that "meaningful" means something rather more profound.
If it is only bumps and scratches, then do they really need a rule? and if you mean serious trauma and death, please provide some evidence that helmets prevent them.
The only proven fact about helmets is the anti's will shoe horn the argument into any thread they can.
While it may be compulsory to wear one on the BHF rides, it's not compulsory to go on a BHF ride, so if you don't like it, then it's really easy to avoid.
That way we won't have to read the same old arguments constantly
The only proven fact about helmets is that the zealots will take every opportunity to denigrate those presenting the facts rather than the myths, fairy stories and lies of those promoting helmets.
The question is why the BHF has this rule, a question which seems to have escaped your comprehension. BHF exists to prevent heart disease and one of the best ways of doing that is by riding a bike regularly, but the BHF discourages cycling with its helmet rule, so it is increasing heart disease by its own actions.
Trust me, we'll keep hearing the same old arguments, supported by all the facts, data and science, until people like BHF drop their entirely counterproductive rule.
Another definition of zealotry would be to hijack a thread about something unrelated and spam it repeatedly with the same tired old crap even after the reasons have been explained to you in very simple words.
Fact is that over the years hundreds of thousands of cyclists have participated in BHF charity rides. They really are not struggling to fill spaces and they really are not missing you if you decide to stay away.
Fact is that BHF are not a cycling lobby.
Fact is that BHF are not calling for compulsory cycle anything outside the guidance of their own events.
If you feel so strongly on the subject, why not start your own organisation to campaign against the dreaded cycle helmet. You could even organise your own charity walk and make people wear helmets to demonstrate your point.
"Why would any cyclist want to support an organisation which makes absurd decisions and discourages cycling and healthy exercise, defeating the reason for its existence?"
Indeed, I hate it that people are now more likely to survive heart conditions due to charities such as this...
"We can provide all the support you need..." with the exception of providing somewhere you feel safe enough to ride.
Bare in mind that disabled are around that sort of %,
"6% of children are disabled, compared to 16% of working age adults and 45% of adults over State Pension age"
Clearly not as clear cut as that, some disabled will be abled to ride and so on.
They have no choice but to follow the guidance issued in the highway code. To do otherwise would leave them open to critiscism and possible legal action in the event of a head related injury.
Obviously a bit unfortunate for those very few who have a psychosis that physically prevents them from wearing a helmet and joining in but there are other ways to support such events such as marshalling (though you may have to wear hi viz).
The Highway Code is advice, not law, and there is no reason to follow it, and there has been a single incident of a legal case where it was found that contributory negligence applied for not wearing a helmet, in such unique circumstances that it did not make case law. They could do what the HC does, and advise you to wear a helmet, but compulsion is frankly stupid.
Why would any cyclist want to support an organisation which makes absurd decisions and discourages cycling and healthy exercise, defeating the reason for its existence?
This kind of creeping compulsion by incompetent organisers should be resisted by everyone interested in increasing the number of cyclists.
I think that's going a bit far. I would say that the BHF encourages cycling quite a lot. I think a fairer way of making your point would be "could encourage cycling more effectively", or "doesn't encourage cycling as much as it could."
I don't think that just because one might disagree with their helmet policy, and think that it's counterproductive, one could never support what they are doing! Would more people cycle if the BHF didn't exist? I doubt it. I know a lot of non-cyclists who have done the L2B or similar. I'm sure some of those people must "get the bug."
Babies and bathwater spring to mind.
The only proven effect of helmet laws is to reduce the number of cyclists, there is no safety improvement. By having a helmet rule, BHF are clearly implying that cycling is dangerous, which is in itself likely to discourage people from cycling.
Regular cycling is an extremely good way of preventing heart disease, and BHF aren't really interested in encouraging cycling, otherwise they wouldn't have the ludicrous, unjustified helmet rule. They'd be doing everything possible to make sure more people rode bikes more often to prevent heart attacks, not discouraging it by making it appear dangerous, which is exactly what the helmet zealots have been doing for thirty years.
There must be someone reading this thread who works for, or knows someone who works for BHF, so how about telling us why they have this rule?
That would be the same British Heart Foundation that discourages cycling by having a helmet rule on it's fundraising rides would it?
"a. All Participants in Events involving cycling (“Cycle Event”) must:
wear a cycle helmet at all times during the Cycle Event;"
Frankly, I find it absurd to the point of insanity that a charity supposed to be dedicated to lowering levels of heart disease actively discourages people from taking the exercise necessary to ensure that they stay healthy, especially when the evidence that cycle helmets prevent serious injury and death are absent and there is no legal, health, safety or insurance reason for having their rule.
Time that these organisers were held to account and explained why they have such a mistaken rule. Mind you, the few I've been in touch with normally mumble something about insurance, clearly an alternative fact, and then refuse to correspond any further.
How about it road.cc? Get in touch with them and find out why they have this rule? Or at least what they claim anyway. Trump truth anyone?
Bloody hell- surely there are enough feckin' helmet debate treads on this site now that you don't need to crowbar in another one!
I would imagine it's probably more down to getting public liability insurance than a foundation rule.
No. I've been in touch with quite a few of the organisers who mandate helmets to ask why they have such a rule, and many of them have claimed that it is imposed by the insurance company. However, checking with the insurance company reveals that they make no such stipulation, so the organisers were lying, or is that alternative truth these days. Any organiser with a helmet rule clearly doesn't understand risk, and I'd rather avoid rides where the organisers are clueless about risk. What else have they completely misunderstood?
The insurance companies are experts in life expetancy and risk, and they don't demand helmet rules: what does that tell you?
The insurance companies also don't demand that I drive to the speed limit in my car or reduce my millage either, but if I do they reduce the cost of insurance. They don't have to mandate it, just put an incentive on it.
I'm sorry, arre you saying that insurance companies reduce the cost of insurance for cyclists if they wear a helmet? If so, could you provide a couple of examples?
To save you time, they don't. But please feel free to waste your time looking.
Insurance companies will increase your car insurance if you're found guility of exceeding the speed limit, because their data shows that people who exceed the speed limit have more collisions and the effects of those collisions are more serious. On the other hand, the data shows that cycle helmets make, at best, no difference to the safety of cyclists, and at worst increase the risk, so they don't increase the premiums for people who don't wear helmets. Or, as they are otherwise known, people intelligent enough to read the evidence.
A very quick google search (because I like to waste my time) and the first link states this:
What do insurers consider?
You will also need to make sure you adhere to any insurance requirements so you don't invalidate your policy. These can include having working lights fitted for night time cycling and wearing a helmet at all times.
Quoted from:
http://www.money.co.uk/bicycle-insurance/bicycle-liability-insurance.htm
Maybe they are trying to avoid any sort of claim like the case of Reynolds v. Strutt & Parker where the High Court held that the partners organising the cycling event had breached their duty of care owed to the claimant as neither had properly assessed the need to recommend and/or require participants to wear helmets.
This doesn't really surprise me; most people I know haven't been on a bike for ten years; *I* hadn't, for probably twenty years until I started cycle commuting about five years ago.
75% of me forgets halfway through a crit.